Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to a method for starting an application in a portable terminal, performed in an information-processing apparatus and the portable terminal, by using proximity wireless communication.
Description of the Related Art
In recent years, portable terminals including so-called smartphones have become widespread. The smartphones are multifunctional portable telephones having high affinities for the Internet and produced based on techniques of personal computers. In addition, a large number of software development kits (SDKs) have been made available. The SDKs are provided to develop applications (hereinafter may also be simply referred to as “app”) that can be used in portable terminals. These situations are forming an environment where developers can freely develop applications for portable terminals and distribute the developed applications.
For example, applications for operating a printer, a fax, or a multifunction peripheral (MFP) with these functions (i.e., MFP applications) from a portable terminal have also been developed using SDKs and made available. A user can use various functions of an MFP, by starting a MFP application in a portable terminal. In general, an application to be used in a portable terminal (an application for a mobile) is often created as an application for a single function. Therefore, a user operating a MFP from a portable terminal needs to operate the basic functions of the MFP via an MFP application, and to start other applications when intending to use extension functions, in many cases.
Meanwhile, near field communication (NFC) that is an example of proximity wireless communication (noncontact communication) have become widespread in various fields. Functions of NFC are implemented by, for example, a device mounted with an NFC unit configured to include components such as an NFC tag and an NFC reader/writer. Between the devices each mounted with the NFC unit, a communication session is established by merely bringing these devices close to each other to be within a few centimeters. The communication session ends when these devices are moved away from each other. In this way, a communication session is established/terminated by merely bringing the devices close to/moving the devices away from each other. Therefore, NFC has been attracting attention as a convenient way that allows users to easily use various services, and NFC is being put to practical use, in various fields.
For example, assume that an image forming apparatus has an NFC tag recording status information of a device, and a portable terminal has a reader (a NFC reader) for reading the information recorded in the NFC tag. In such a system configuration, when a user desires to confirm the status of a device, the user can easily acquire detailed information of the device by merely holding a portable terminal over the device, i.e., by merely bringing the portable terminal close to the device.
The NFC tag may be configured as a component in which various kinds of information can be written. Examples of such information include a uniform resource identifier (URI) scheme (e.g., http), a service set identifier (SSID), and an encryption key.
For example, upon reading the NFC tag recording such information, a portable terminal automatically starts a predetermined application, or executes Wi-Fi handover processing. The Wi-Fi handover processing automatically causes a connection changeover from one communication standard to another of a different type, e.g., from 3G communication to wireless local area network (LAN) communication.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2013-78035 discusses a portable terminal. This portable terminal acquires function selection information from a MFP, after starting an NFC communication session upon being brought close to the MFP. The portable terminal then terminates temporarily the NFC communication session upon being moved away from the MFP, so that a user performs operation such as manually designating a setting item. When being brought close to the MFP again, the portable terminal starts an NFC communication session, thereby instructing the MFP to execute a job according to the setting item.
However, information about applications that can be written in an NFC tag is limited to one. Therefore, the user needs to change a screen for an application according to a job desired to be executed in the MFP, or needs to start another application according to a job. The user may also need to start another application that requires connection to wireless LAN communication of Fi-Wi (registered trademark) or the like, depending on the job desired to be executed in the MFP.
In this case, it is necessary to include, for example, a program for Wi-Fi handover processing, to make a communication-connection changeover for each application provided in the portable terminal. As a result, an application size becomes relatively large thereby requiring a large part of the capacity of a storage device of the portable terminal, which is a problem remaining unsolved. In the first place, the Wi-Fi handover processing cannot be performed on the application side, for a browser or the like built in a portable terminal. Therefore, the user needs to make a changeover manually, for example, from portable-telephone communication to wireless LAN communication, whenever necessary.